I'm planning to setup a 40gallon tank in the next few months and want to keep angels in it. I've had the tank setup as a community tank in the past with a couple of beautiful angels, but it's been empty for a while so I've got a clean canvas so to speak.

I'm waiting for the room to be decorated and my husband to build a stand for the tank, then I'm good to go.

Hello and welcome FiBi. How exciting, a new set up. I would recommend no more than 4, around 1 Angel per 10 gals. Try to get them as babies so they should get along as the grow up. Any idea what type you will be getting? There's lots of excellent breeders here who have all sorts of quality angels. Good luck with the new set up.

Hello, although 4 is an ideal number, i would go with 5 as long as you keep up with the water quality,An odd number always looks better in tank when you dont have many fish but obviously when you have loads of fish in a set-up, it doesn't matter if you have an odd or even number!Don't know why this odd number thing looks better but it just does!Mark.

I have to say I keep mine rather more densely than that!I've seen 10 gallons per fish quoted, usually on American sites, it's worth remembering that a US gallon = 0.83 imperial gallons.As domestic angels tend to be somewhat smaller than wild fish, as long as I wasn't keeping any wild, or particularily large specimens, I'd probably be looking at about 8 or 9 fish in a 40 gallon tank.

In my experience keeping them slightly more densely packed seems to reduce problems with agression. Although that does also necessitate more frequent water changes and efficient filtration.My 260 litre (57 gallon) currently has in excess of 20, mostly young adult, fish in it. But admittedly these aren't fully grown, and as they grow they get thinned out/moved on to larger accomodation!